American Economic Objectives in Europe

What shape will the international system take in the aftermath of the Cold War? Raymond G H Seitz, the American Ambassador to London, speaking at the fourth LSE Business Performance Lecture, saw an increasing role for the "plethora of international institutions that grew up during the Cold War and (which) should emerge as one of the great legacies of that area". Such multilateralism must also be pursued in trade. Should the Uruguay round of the GATT fail, "The world will surely begin to lurch down a twisting road of retaliation and counter-retaliation as states take unilateral action to address multilateral problems".     

欧洲经济一体化、区域差距与经济趋同

区域经济一体化有利于缩小区域内各国的经济差距吗?本文对1994-2005年间波兰、匈牙利、捷克、斯洛伐克、斯洛文尼亚、爱沙尼亚、拉脱维亚、立陶宛、马耳他、塞浦路斯与欧盟15国的经济一体化进程进行了趋同分析,结果发现该25国存在σ-趋同和条件β-趋同。并认为制度趋同是经济趋同的基础,落后国家人均物资资本和人均技术资本的增加以及来自欧盟发达地区的技术扩散是促进该25国趋同的重要因素。     

A Social and Economic Model for Europe

The problems that social and labour market institutions are facing today are often attributed to globalisation and ageing. This article argues that globalisation merely exposes inherent weaknesses in social institutions while ageing aggravates them, but that neither of the two phenomena is the fundamental cause of the challenges. Moreover, there is no inherent trade-off between social and economic policies, but to reconcile the policies comprehensive modernisation is needed. Each country can face the challenges should they wish to do so and converging to a single social model is neither needed nor wanted. Finally, European (economic) and national (social) policies become increasingly intertwined and this calls for a new role for Europe. * Bureau of European Policy Advisers, European Commission. The authors would like to thank Tassos Belessiotis for his valuable comments. The authors would also like to thank their colleagues Declan Costello, Georg Fischer, Agnes Hubert, Frédéric Lerais, Mattias Levin, Roger Liddle and Jér?me Vignon. In addition valuable comments by Lans Bovenberg, Gosta Esping-Andersen, Ruud de Mooij, Frederick van der Ploeg and Fritz Scharpf were appreciated. The views expressed in this article are the views of the authors and do not bind the European Commission.     

Intangible capital: the key to growth in Europe

Intangibles and especially organisational capital are an important source of capital deepening in European countries, albeit with significant cross-country differences. The GDP in the EU27 area is 5.5% higher if certain categories of expenditure, which have until now been considered as current costs, are classified as investments in intangibles. Intangible capital investment markedly improves the profitability of companies, given the productivity-wage gap, and leads to increasing returns in intangible capital intensive countries.